Vale
by Cynic
Summary: (Vale means goodbye in Latin) I studied you, Harry. I know you, but you will never know me.
1. Ink

Title: Vale

Author: Cynic ( QueenDrgn06@aol.com)

Disclaimer: See Draco? Not mine. See money? Not mine.

Rating: PG-13

Feedback: Anything! Constructive Crit is greatly appreciated. 

Archive: Yes Please! E-mail me a link.

Warning: Slash and Suicide.

Summary: I studied you, Harry. I know you, but you will never know me. 

Notes: Ok Ok. I know I am supposed to be working on Sparrow and Starling, I am almost done that chapter. And I think this is going to be three or four vignettes.. Enjoy! Oh and Vale means Goodbye in Latin

Harry, 

Pride is Power. Do you know what that is? It is the Malfoy family motto. My family's motto. Do you know what it means? What it demands? I don't think you would. Do you know why?

That's what I was, Harry, cool and sophisticated. I knew I was better than all others, I did not have to prove it to the plebes I mingled with. I was taught not to concede to respond to insults, I was taught that I didn't need to. I was a patrician, a pureblood, more secure in my scant 11 years then most wizards are in their lifetimes. I was high class, high quality, high society, high magic and I knew it. 

Then, Harry, I met you. Did you ever notice that you were always the only one that could ever disturb my façade of perfection? That even teachers, authority, could curse and scream, but I would smile slightly as though it was a child arguing with a playmate over some trifle. That even Weasly could rant and rave but I would stand serene, only hurting him when it would hurt you. Only hurting her to get to you. Around you I forgot that I was a Malfoy and only remembered that I was Malfoy. Your enemy, your rival, your foe, your nemesis of your schoolboy days. But I was never the enemy. If, Harry, you were the hero of this saga, surely I wouldn't be the villain. I was a gnat, biting and bothering, yet do I not seem more real then the distant antagonist? You were always my only enemy. 

When we fought, your eyes would freeze up like a bit of leaf trapped in purest ice. I remember how you would stiffen, your back suddenly straight and your black hair wilder in the winds of your anger.  You made me feel alive, like I was a person, not a simulacrum extension of the Malfoy name. I was myself. And I lost my pride. 

You have always had power over me, Harry. You have always been my only catalyst. You somehow missed that, you never knew that you were the only one that could ever rile me or make me feel. Or maybe you didn't miss it. Maybe you knew. But you never manipulated me for it. How like you. 

And I know you. As we grew up together, constantly bickering and quarrelling in the echoing stone halls of our school, you grew to be something that I could admire. And admire I did. I had been taught from infancy to appreciate beauty, after all, and you are beautiful. 

Your hair is like a drop of night, somehow condensed and resting upon your head like a panther ready to spring. Eyes that are endlessly expressive, shifty and displaying your thoughts in pools of deepest green, showing your innermost feelings to a candid world. But you never held anything in them for me, but anger. Loathing even. Disdain. You may think me insane, Harry.  But I studied you. And I know you. 

Your nose is crooked from where you broke it in the Slytherin/Gryffindor final Quidditch game of sixth year. Pomfrey could have fixed it straight, but you refused to stop playing. You won that game, with blood dripping on the leather of your uniform as you accepted the cup, a small pool of scarlet resting on the cold metal. Red and gold are Gryffindor colors.

You always sit to the right of Ron, but Hermione moves around. Last night she was ignoring the two of you because Ron had just found out about her continuing letters to Krum and you took his side as you always do. You apologized to her by the end of dinner, ending up in the middle as you always do.

When you are nervous you ruffle your hair and chew on quills. On the day of our big potions test, you had ink all over your lips and tongue and the nib had sliced your bottom lip. 

You doodle all over your textbooks, coloring in the page numbers and sketching poor pictures of your teachers and the Slytherins, typically deforming us in one way or another. Somehow you always loose at tic-tac-toe.  

You tan well and in the summer you get freckles across your nose and cheeks. You hate them but Hermione told you they looked cute, making Ron not look or talk you to you for a week.

After the Cho episode you haven't dated, but four girls and Terry Boot asked you to the Halloween ball. You went alone, without a costume.

Your favorite candies are Chocolate Frogs, but you don't collect the cards. You collect the wrappers, saying that you never did anything normal. You really like Cockroach Clusters, but Ron is disgusted and you have to get them when he is not looking. You try to make them last as long as possible, but you never seem to have enough. 

You fly like you have nothing to lose, like the only moment is now and neither past nor future matters. You fly like a wind in a hurricane. Nothing is controlled about your Quidditch game. You are everywhere at once and nowhere, energy that cannot decide what it wants to do. You are fire. You fly on natural talent and that fierce and all consuming desire to win. You have never accepted the offers of captaincy, because you say you do not have the skill to teach. People think this is false modesty, but I know you are telling the truth. You were born knowing how to fly, you where born for the skies. It is beyond you that someone would need to be taught.

You know what you are going to do when you graduate. Your not going to go into Auror training because you know you do not have the time. They need you on the front lines now, not only because of your talent but because of who you are. They need you. 

I would also join this war, but not on your side, regardless about how much I need you. We would meet again on the battlefield, with our wands at ready, and it is worth wondering who would strike first. This cursed war. It consumed my father and left my vapid mother the head of our noble house as he rots in Azkaban. She will lead the Malfoys until I come of age. Until I turn eighteen. Tomorrow. I am nothing without you. I am nothing without my family honor. I am nothing. 

We will never know who would strike first. But I am sure that it would have been you. I love you, Harry. You will never love me. I am nothing, but I hate it. I hate being confined and fettered by my love for you, by my family pride, by that horrible intangible called fate. I hate it. So, you see, I am not really giving up. I am being defiant by robbing them of their chess piece. But I know that I love you and I just wish that I could have known it sooner. And I wish that you did not think it hate.

Vale, Harry.


	2. Blood

Title: Vale

Author: Cynic ( QueenDrgn06@aol.com)

Disclaimer: See Draco? Not mine. See money? Not mine.

Rating: PG-13

Feedback: Anything! Constructive Crit is greatly appreciated. 

Archive: Yes Please! E-mail me a link.

Warning: Slash and Suicide.

Summary: I studied you, Harry. I know you, but you will never know me. 

Notes: Second Vignette.

Hermione was the first to find the letter. The first to read the spidery text, scratched unto fine parchment in ink of deep and glittering red. The first to feel the niggling seed of suspicion grow with Harry's name, written in that graceful font. The first to examine the empty seal, a mere circle of wax, without any defined markings. The first to break the wax, cut the seal. The first to read the words within.

            A muffled cry of horror and the letter floated to the ground. 

            Soft beating of a heart, sped with revelations never expected, but known in the deepest recesses of her heart. A girl, seeking dubious comfort in the embrace of the warm armchair, did not dare trust her empty throat. A young woman motioned to fallen epiphany, and a boy picks it up. 

            Hard clicking of boot against stone, two pieces of parchment clutched in sweaty hands. One of the parchment, the disclosure of emotion never before. The other, an etching of the hallowed halls of the castle that his feet now trod. A dot, of the writer, the author, fading slowly in the inevitable end to a life that had been lived dancing on the blade of a knife. Finally he fell. Finally he was cut by his own sharp edged smile. And the boy should be rejoicing in the pain of his demise. And Harry should be happy. Or if not happy, then resigned, accepting that this was a war and Draco was a casualty. That Malfoy was a casualty.

            But with his black hair –_drop of night_- falling into his eyes –_pools of deepest green-_ and breath coming quick, harried, all Harry knew that he was not going to accept this.  That he was not going to know that the purest blood in wizarding England was being wasted upon the cold stone, and not strive to prevent its desecration. 

            His life wasn't his own to take. Draco was Harry's. His rival, his enemy, his deepest and most primal fear. Draco was his everything.

            Doors rushed by, strides growing out of desperation. No time, no time. Never enough time. His vision was a blur of grey and tears, the flashes of color a minor annoyance with their reaching arms and worried shouts. He pushed himself still faster, every muscle striving to beat this last challenge of Malfoy's. Draco's one last test.

            The door at last. He slowed and stopped, chest heaving with pained, ragged gasps. He opened the door to the abandoned classroom.  He enter the altar where yet more blood was spilled to the god of Harry Potter.

            It smelled of death. That's what he first noticed, the sickly, sweet smell of fresh spilt blood pervaded the room. Lying in the center was Draco, lean and lithe form sprawled out like a sacrifice. Twin pools of blood flowed from his writs, cut with the silver gleam of the knife.

Two more steps. Harry saw his reflection in the cool steel, distorted by the blood and the blade. He knelt, studying the perfect face of this boy, this man, lying before him. Lifeless, soulless, where there was once fire and vitality. 

            He was dead. He was dying, he was dying, he was dead. Harry's fevered brain saw a maggot crawl out of one eye ad into the other, he saw the slow march of decay end in the flash of a precious instant. He shuddered. 

            Tears flew freely from eyes that beheld this fallen giant. One salty droplet landed on his pale cheek and rolled downward as if he was crying. 

            The eyes opened. Glaze gray orbs met glistening green, and Harry turned away quickly, suddenly embarrassed.

            A voice rasped, "Harry…" and the word faded into the air, yet rang clearing in his mind.

            With his name, his training took over.  He grasped Draco's bleeding wrists and Healed him. This was not the delicate procedure that he had been taught on injured wing or wounded paw. This was not the countless little pains, quick and easy. This was rougher, realer, something so far above them that it drew from their basest natures. He poured his hate, his confusion, his regret and some emotions he was not yet ready to name behind the magic. His very lifeforce strengthened it and willed him back to life with it. The horizontal slashes healed, white scar tissue replacing red blood. 

            Harry opened his eyes, the world pitching and weaving in his fatigue and the solid thing was Draco. He was equally as tired, but his stare held accusation, apology, and most of all, thanks. 

            "Harry?" he said again, this time concerned.

            "m'fine…sensors" he pushed out.

            Draco nodded slightly and closed his own eyes, still resting against the cold stone of the class room floor. Harry collapsed next to him, crumpling under the weight of his responsibility. But lying there, with Draco in front of him, he wrapped his arms around the other boy. Holding him and comforting him, taking comfort and giving it. Protecting him from the daemons that nipped at his heels. 

            The blood soaked into his robe, sticky and infusing it with a rich and heady smell. 

((The sensors that he speaks of are referring to the sensors I am assuming that are in Hogwarts that go off when someone uses a lot of magic. So the teachers can find our boys^^)) 


	3. Dirt

Title: Vale

Author: Cynic ( QueenDrgn06@aol.com)

Disclaimer: See Draco? Not mine. See money? Not mine.

Rating: PG-13

Feedback: Anything! Constructive Crit is greatly appreciated. 

Archive: Yes Please! E-mail me a link.

Warning: Slash and Suicide.

Summary: I studied you, Harry. I know you, but you will never know me. 

Notes:  Is anyone else getting the feeling that this is going to be longer than "three or four vignettes"? 'Cause I sure am. Hope none of y'all mind. Speaking of which. GAH! *gapes and points to reviewers* You actually like this? Woh. I just wanted to say that I loved you all. Going back to the length point. Heh. This is really short, just about a page. I just love the last line and think it felt complete there. Never fear though, these short angsty things are what I am best at, or at least I think so. So there will be lots of them. And this update is a two for one special! Many of these vignettes, I will say now, are going to be in different viewpoints and in different styles. Be forewarned, not all of what you read will be precisely what it seems. I am sort of planning on making this my experimental fic, where I play with language. My favorite toy. ^^

Someone was trying to take Harry. He clung to the prone and cold form in front of him, with the dead weight of Harry's arm resting on his shoulder. 

            He sunk his fingers deep into the fabric of Harry's soggy robe, grasping with a sort of desperation that only the dead would understand. He felt a thousand questing fingers and countless little touches wondering and worrying with every brush against his skin. A sharp tug, but still Draco held. The touching ceased and he opened his eyes to see the empty face of his companion. 

            The bright green eyes were open, but they were only mirrors now, nothing of Harry behind them. His eyes clashed horribly with the purple satin his head was rested on. With a queer sort of indifference, Draco noted that the cushion was stiff and lumpy and not at all comfortable. He had the strange feeling of being confined and knowing he could not move even if he wanted to. He floated on winds of apathy, numbness taking and consuming.  A cold hard barrier pressed against his back, seeming to leech all the warmth out of him.

            The light was dying. He glanced upward and watched the padded board lowered down upon them. He did not panic until it was dark. He felt Harry smiling at him. He was smiling at him, _he was dead._ He was smiling, it was alright, _he__ was dead. The whine and creak of leather straps, _they were dead. _The soft smell of newly disturbed dirt, _he was dead. _He was dead! The gentle sounds of skin and satin. He was dead! The darkness, inky black, but comforting. He was dead! The lurch as they reached the bottom of the pit. He was dead! The thud of dirt landing on their coffins lid. They were dead!_

            And suddenly there was light. White burst unto his eyes, as their lids slowly opened to meet the cold stark of the Hospital Wing. He was in pain, but he relished in it. He cherished it, he lusted for it. He felt every breath of air that Harry took, he felt every of his own. His heart beat painfully loud in his chest, and the muted, dull tick of Harry's, like a watch covered in cotton.  He felt the lines of scar tissue tracing up and down his arms, felt the hair on the back of his neck. He felt pain, sharp and fiery, in his wrists as if they were punishing him and reminding him that he failed. 

            He did not move for a long time, lying completely still, studying Harry as he never had the chance to before. His dark, leathery skin with its sprinkling of freckles, pores making small pits in the perfection of it. The crook in his nose giving him an endearing, clueless look. The unfairly long lashes, black and curved upward. Full lips, not red, but pale and dark, parted slightly as he breathed in his needed sleep. A graceful neck, chest bones protruding more then was normal but the lines graceful as always. His cheekbones were clear and high , and if not as emancipated as Draco's, they still were too prominent. But the scar. A sweltering puckered red, the line no longer white and quiet but alive, tormenting and harassing him with eternal reminders. He was not a normal child. He was not just a seventh year. He was Harry Potter. 

            As Draco thought his name, his eyes snapped open to meet Draco's own. Time seemed to slow, and then stop, every beat of their near hearts taking eons between each beat. They were discordant, not making harmony but clanging dissonance that was the history of their partnering. He knew that Harry was going to push him away, disgusted. He knew that Harry saved him only to save himself from the guilt. He knew that blackmail was worthless if he was dead.

            He knew that Harry had just smiled. 


	4. Name

Title: Vale

Author: Cynic ( QueenDrgn06@aol.com)

Disclaimer: See Draco? Not mine. See money? Not mine.

Rating: PG-13

Feedback: Anything! Constructive Crit is greatly appreciated. 

Archive: Yes Please! E-mail me a link.

Warning: Slash and Suicide.

Summary: I studied you, Harry. I know you, but you will never know me. 

Notes: Since I noticed that a rarely (read 'almost never') do dialogue, I decided that I needed to do only dialogue. So you poor souls were subjected to this continuation of D/H relationship. I don't think I am going to do this again; I am not very good at it. Forgive me. 

"You saved me."

"Yes."

"You read my letter."

"Yes"

"You are still holding me."

"Yes."

"Goddamn it Potter!"

"What?"

"Don't do fucking do this to me!"

"What?"  
  


"Can't you fucking speak in more than one word?"

"Look, Draco. Calm down."

"Calm down! Bloody calm down he says. _You're the one who refuses to let go of me!"_

"Do you want to me to let go?"

"…"

"I see."

"And since when have you been calling me Draco?"

"Well, about the time I prevented you from killing yourself."

"It is a game to you isn't it?"

"What? No-"

"Let go of me. Now."

"Draco, I'm-"

"Now, Potter. And you will stop calling me Draco. My name is Malfoy."

"Your name is Draco."

"It is not! And it never has been. Let go of me!"

"What's the point? You can't move, and neither can I."

"Let go of me."

"But the letter-"

"Was a horrible mistake."

"But, you almost-"

"I'll succeed next time."

"How can you be so… so cold… so like you normally are?"

"Articulate, Potter. Now let go of me."

"Fine, Draco"

"My name is Malfoy."


End file.
